The Reality of the Love Story
by KnightedRogue
Summary: Sometimes it takes a number of truths to get to the truth. HSLO, NJO.
1. Prologue

**Author Notes:**

I started writing a vignette that just wouldn't shut up. It became nineteen Word pages of vignettes, all connected to each other by the chronology of the NJO. Different POVs, different scenerios, different opinions on the situation at hand, namely the death and rebirth of the H/L relationship after Chewbacca's death.

I'll note at the end of each section whose POV is being presented, and what time period it was written in. There are ten scenes total, all of which have already been written and will be updated daily.

You may like what your favorite (or not so favorite) character has to say. You may not. But at least you'll see what the emotional spectrum of the NJO actually is. :)

* * *

**The Reality of the Love Story**

_(Sometimes it takes a number of truths to get to the truth) _

_

* * *

_

Nothing is as depressing as a love story.

We fuss over love, exalt it as the epitome of life's experiences. Everything is centered on it; our music, our holofilms, what we hope and dream and live for.

But then, of course, the love story ends. Even if it spans twenty – thirty – forty years, it still ends with the inevitable last kiss, the leaving, the mourning. And people don't like to read about the aftermath, or the recuperation, because we are only allowed _one _true love, and what's the point of having a one _true_ love if you can fall in love again later?

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I have a love story for you. It's a good love story with a happy ending, but not a happy middle. Like so many love stories, the antagonist splits the one true _love_. This one is different, though. I've read enough love stories to know that the antagonist should be defeated, should leave, and the happily ever after starts brand new.

This is a love story where the antagonist isn't really evil and the one true love isn't instantly repaired. Love is not a jigsaw puzzle. It can't be assembled – or reassembled – in one day. It doesn't have boundaries. You don't _finish _a love story, even when the story is concluded. Because people don't fit together perfectly; there are rifts and wrong edges and big gaps where another can't possibly connect.

What makes this love story a good one is that you know it will end happily. Unlike the characters, you can be reassured that life is crueler than I am, and I am in control, after all.

This is a love story. A happy love story with a depressing middle. A love story that demonstrates to you the _true _resiliency of love.

This is a love story.

_A long time ago._

This is a love story.

* * *

(Narrator) 


	2. Heroic Couplets

**

* * *

**

**Part I: Heroic Couplets**

* * *

It wasn't a hero's goodbye.

She kissed me, but it was too soft. Old. Or a copy of a copy of a kiss. I kissed her, but it tried too hard.

So I've decided that a) I'm no hero, and b) it's not a goodbye.

I've never been a hero. Heroes ain't real. I'm not able to be durasteel in the middle of a crisis. I can't save anyone. I sure as hell wish I could. I can fly alright, I can shoot, but I never claimed to be a hero. No one is. We're all shit waiting for somebody better to come along.

That's it. That's all I am.

I never said I was a hero. You just assumed I was. It's your fault if you're too damn gullible to see the writing on the wall. Grow up. Your hero is dead and all that's left is some idiot shouting out into the rain.

That's all a hero is. Kill him off fast, because he'll get damn annoying if you keep him around much longer.

And it's not goodbye.

You may think it is. Fine with me. She knows it's not goodbye.

She's the only person I can think of that gets close to hero. But it's not enough to be strong and smart and durasteel, you have to be _good _in general. Leia may be lots of things, but she's too screwed up to be completely good. She's too angry, too experienced to be good. People like her come close, but there's something in the way. Leia stopped be truly, honestly _good _the minute she lost everything.

Damn woman has lost everything too many times to count.

Heroes never lose everything. They don't bleed, they don't cry. They don't feel. Whatever Leia is, she's not a hero.

She may be too good for me, but she's not _good._

That's why it isn't a goodbye. Because only heroes say goodbye. Only heroes get the goodbye kiss that I didn't and only heroes say goodbye for real.

If I were a hero, maybe I'd be able to say goodbye. Maybe I'd be able to say what I damn well want to when I damn well want to because I damn well want to.

But I'm no hero, and neither is she. And so we can't say goodbye.

It's not a goodbye if one of you isn't a hero.

That just makes us normal and divided.

* * *

(Han, _Hero's Trial_)


	3. Elle

**Part II: Elle**

* * *

I wish I could say that I wasn't pleased to hear the hitch in her voice. 

That would make me feel less …

Well, less heartless.

But I was. And I am. And I wish I wasn't.

This isn't borne of some kind of lingering resentment of mine. I can't excuse what I thought of her once I had married, but I can at least give her courtesy enough as a person and friend to be honest with myself now. I loved her. I did. But choices dictate emotions, and I'm respectful enough of my wife to let bygones be bygones.

We both made choices, we both benefited from them.

When I brush past her, I still feel electricity. And a small part of me wants to ignore our choices and to remind her that the minute she feels overburdened by her decision, she can tell me and I'll come running.

But I'm not delusional. I knew where I stood with her every time we met on the diplomatic circuit. She looked satisfied and loved, and I allowed myself the pleasure of enjoying her company more than my imaginations. I focused on my own life, attempted to find fulfillment, as she had evidently found in her own. Eventually I stopped wondering and eyeing and calculating.

Until I found her in the observation gallery on the way to Fondor, left hand pressed against the glass next to her forehead. Her shoulders looked completely loose and her hair was tied away from her face. I heard her whispering to herself, the syllables dripping off her tongue with a faint royal accent I've never heard her slip before.

"If you had just _told _me –"

I turned to go, feeling awkward and intrusive, until I heard his voice, coming from the comm in her right hand by her side.

"I'm telling you now."

"Please. Don't do this to me."

I heard a sigh from the other end of the comm.

"I'm not doing anything to you, Leia."

She shook her head, and the bottom of my heart dropped out.

"Is this it?"

There was no response.

"Is this how it ends, Han?"

"I don't know."

There was a long pause. I took two steps forward when she spoke again:

"I can't just stop loving you." He was silent as she spoke again. "It may be easy enough for you, but I can't – "

"You think that's what I've done?" There was a burst of static. "Hell, if I was anywhere near that …"

"Come back to me."

She spoke so quietly that I almost backed out of the room, but I was completely transfixed, watching the destruction of a marriage like the collapse of a star.

"No."

She sucked in a breath, and her accent became even more noticeable.

"_Paumí, _Han, what do you expect me to do? You've put me in this position of being your damn port of call."

"Come on. You're being stupid."

"_I'm _being aware._ I_ can see what's happening."

"What's that?"

"We're dying, Han, and you don't seem to care about it at all."

"You're exaggerating."

"I wish I was."

Silence. Then, quietly:

"_Ơ pasheh."_

As little as I knew of High Alderaani, the tone of her voice told me everything I needed to know about her ultimatum.

His voice was quieter when he answered.

"No. I love you. I do. Don't doubt that. But – " her head dropped down another two meters " – that's not enough right now."

She was crying, I could tell.

"I need you to love me enough to let me do this, okay,_ elle_? I need you to let go for awhile."

"I can't do that."

"Please."

Both of her hands were now holding her head against the viewport, her comm clipped to her belt, and I could feel her desperation from where I stood, nearly twelve meters away.

"Leia, _please_."

She sighed, dropped her hands, unclipped the comm and spoke directly into it.

"I love you."

"_Lesch-mor, elle_."

I understood enough Corellian to absorb the import of his endearment. I had never wanted to kill Solo more than in that instant, when she shrunk further into herself and covered up her tears, and I found my former stellar princess heartbroken, her light bending over the dark of the hull.

"Out," she said, and I found myself alone with a woman who cared too much for others to bother with emotional self-preservation. I left her because I felt like I couldn't be trusted to act rationally after what I'd just heard. I retired to my own quarters, feeling like the atmosphere was suddenly filled with nitrogen and that I'd drown in it if I breathed too deeply.

I just wish Han Solo were here to see the emotional state in which he left his wife.

So he could fix it.

Because, as much as I may have at one time wanted to, I'm not the one that gets to call her _elle_.

* * *

(Isolder, _Jedi Eclipse_) 


	4. Storytelling

_**Part III: The Story**_

* * *

This was not a good beginning. 

I could start over.

... Once upon a time.

_I don't know who you are or where you came from …_

They met.

_You want me to stay because of the way you feel about me._

There were some battles.

_Being held by you isn't quite enough to get me excited._

Some arguments.

_Come on. Admit it. Sometimes you think I'm all right._

Some stories even they wouldn't relate.

_Then you're as good as gone, aren't you?_

Villains who were evil.

_Vader wants us all dead._

Villains who weren't so evil.

_You're being put into carbon freeze._

Separations.

_I know._

Reunions.

_I'm here!_

Revelations.

_I can't tell you._

The first happily ever after.

And then another.

And then another.

But then we get here. And suddenly the happily ever after runs out and real life intrudes. And what was important then is still important, but it's curved now. And the black and the white have melted together to form something hard, and it's not yet a diamond and looks very much like coal.

I promised you a happily ever after and warned you of a less happy middle.

This was a bright spot.

I'll give you one more.

* * *

(Narrator) 


	5. Salt and Wounds

_**Part IV: Salt and Wounds**_

* * *

I forgot how much I loved her. 

_Love._ Love her.

Even when I missed her, I forgot. There wasn't time to love her and so I didn't. I flew and I shot and I ate and hardly ever slept, but I also didn't love her.

No. That came out wrong.

I've never fallen out of love with her. Couldn't. But when she was gone and I was telling myself that she didn't matter and when I was trying to be the person I was before her, I didn't actively love her. I didn't think about her on purpose.

That's not what I meant.

I love my wife. Nothing I can do could change that, even though I tried.

God, I tried.

I hope she never finds out how much I tried. It would kill her. It kills _me._

But it didn't work. It was the ship. It was hard to be onboard and not think about either of them. One dead and the other just too painful. It was hell.

Without Chewie it hurt to be in the cockpit.

Without Leia it hurt to be everywhere.

I stopped sleeping in my cabin after two weeks of dreams involving Leia dead on my bunk with my name smeared on her forehead. I stopped making food in the galley after remembering the way her skirts fell when she sat on the counter in my line of sight. I avoided planets that reminded me of her and when Droma suggested a quick run through the Noad system, I ran to the fresher and locked myself in until I got my heart rate under control.

Everything I did, I stepped away from her and everything I did convinced me I was insane.

We were en route to Duro when I concussed myself on the forward stabilizer. Droma helped me into the main cabin, laid me out on the bunk, went to go find painkillers and caffeine pills and came back with an old hardcopy note he'd found in the storage compartment under the galley.

He had me at his mercy, I realized, laid out and unable to sleep and not totally unwilling to talk to him. He looked at the note, just scrap of paper Leia left telling me where she was going, and told me I was an idiot.

I agreed with him.

He asked me to tell our story. Hers and mine. I couldn't do it. It involved too much and said too much about me. I like Droma, but I don't entirely trust him to keep whatever I say - or half-say, damn Ryn - to himself. If we ran into Leia again, he'd tell her what I said, and then I'd have to decide what it was I really wanted.

I know what I really wanted.

I've always known what I really want.

I've always wanted her.

Even then, as far away as I could get from her, I wanted her. Something about her to this day forces me to keep coming back. She's … more addictive than anything I've ever seen before. I hesitate to use the word 'obsession' – it doesn't fit, quite – but she's the closest thing I've ever come to it.

She thinks the _Falcon_ is what I value most. I'm happy to have her think that, she shouldn't know the truth. It's unhealthy to _need _someone that badly. It's embarrassing.

I love my wife more than I can stand. And I couldn't stand to see her for six months.

I hated the way I acted when I got to see her again on Duro. I've talked to her before about my complete stupidity when it comes to complicated conversation, but I've never truly demonstrated to her how awful I am when there's pressure to say the right thing.

She saw it when I told her what I'd been doing. I got defensive. She kissed me.

I couldn't believe it. It was …

Insane. One kiss and I'm ready to jump out an airlock for her again.

It was difficult to find time with her after that. She was working, so was I, and she'd had to be decontaminated. She thought shaving her head would be the worst thing to happen at that moment. I thought maybe it would be worse to leave her alone while it happened.

I pulled her into a hallway. It wasn't private, it wasn't romantic, it wasn't quiet. But the minute I kissed her, I would have killed anyone if they'd interrupted. Her arms tightened that much tighter and she worked against me, and I'd thought maybe I'd lose it then and there, supremely thankful that she was there, with me. And I thought maybe she didn't know what the hell she was doing, either, but kissing her is instinctual for me and loving her apparently more so, and so it was okay that we hadn't planned it. We never planned anything anyway. She broke first, looked at me, and told me she loved me. I wasn't able to say anything to her before she pushed away and told me to find her later.

_Later_ means in an hour.

_Later_ means a lot of things.

_Later_ means a reconciliation that I didn't know I needed but need desperately.

I never stopped loving my wife. _Never_. I tried. It didn't work. _I_ didn't work. And I'll never tell her how much I tried. But _later_ I intend to remind her why it is that I couldn't leave her.

Why it is I'm here. Why I'm still here. Why I'll be here for awhile to come.

* * *

(Han, _Balance Point_) 


	6. The Good Child

_**Part V: The Good Child**

* * *

_

I've always thought Dad was stronger than Mom. He's always radiated this kind of calm, which is even more admirable if you factor in how blind he must feel when he's surrounded by Jedi. Whenever I needed to feel safe, I went to Dad, because Mom's sense was always … tight, maybe, is the best way to put it. Like the galaxy was on her shoulders and she was trying to figure out how to solve every issue without hurting anyone in the process.

It's rough seeing Dad completely lose it.

Even after Chewie died, he didn't show much of anything. Dad isn't like that. He doesn't just unravel like the rest of us do. He shuts things out. That's what he did for the past year. He shut us out.

But it took all of five seconds of seeing his face after we hit hyperspace from Duro to tell me that this was _not_ what was going to happen here.

I'd like to say that I was the dutiful daughter on that trip, but I wasn't. I hid. Jacen did most of the dirty work. Jacen was the one that strapped her to the medbunk, started the IVs, cleaned up the blood and removed the makeshift tourniquet. Jacen was the good child.

Jacen's a lot like Mom.

I snuck in once to check on Mom midway through the nightcycle, once Jacen went to meditate and the vague blurry shape of Dad felt like it had finally fallen asleep. I tripped on the catalyzer on the way there, almost took it for an omen and turned around to go back to the cockpit, but figured I was being stupid, that she was Mom and that she deserved more than a cold shoulder from me when she was so bad.

Dad was wrapped around her. That's the best way to say it. He was asleep in a chair by the medbunk, but he looked like he was in the process of leaving it and stretching out next to her when his stamina left him and he fell asleep. He had a hand tucked beneath her ribs, the other braced against the back of his chair, and his head was leaning back against the bulkhead. Mom looked like she'd been awake and talking to him; her head was facing him and her arm was wrapped around his that was wrapped around her. I noticed her bare head, and felt stupid for feeling empty because it had been shaved.

While I stood there in the hatchframe, she woke up. I was so nervous that I almost left, figuring she'd sense me and make me talk to her. But I guess whatever Jacen had been pumping through her system had dimmed down her perception of the Force, because she didn't see me at all. And I couldn't move without drawing attention to myself, so I just stood still and pretended I didn't exist.

Mom was watching Dad. She didn't move, figuring that he'd probably wake up and knowing that he needed as much sleep as she did (I was with him at Duro. He hasn't been sleeping). She looked at him weirdly, like she wasn't sure why he was there. I thought maybe she didn't remember being hurt, but she kept wincing, so I knocked that theory off the list.

I knew things were bad, but it wasn't until I saw her start to cry that I thought, maybe, I should be spending as much time with her as Dad and Jacen were. I couldn't move, and just kept watching her as tears just slipped down her face when she looked at Dad. I was completely confused. Mom is not the kind of person to be scared of death. She knows what happens. She's seen enough people die, and killed enough, too, to know that none of us are immortal. Everyone dies. It's just a matter of timing.

Mom's emotions were hard to pick up out of the Force, probably because the drugs were obscuring any real linear sequencing, but she projected this absolute fear. I probed deeper. Underneath it all wasn't a basic fear of death, of leaving.

It was a fear of leaving _Dad_. Of leaving him behind. Leaving him behind _alone_.

It made so much sense. She knew how he'd behaved after Chewie died – also knew that he wasn't past that grief. To lose her now on top of it … I agreed with her silently. There's no question in my mind that Dad wouldn't act rationally if Mom died. I don't know if Dad had enough time with her before she was injured to resolve his guilt on her account, but if he hadn't, he would be even less likely to heal.

Mom was Dad's secret weakness.

Mom was everything to him.

I'd never thought I'd see Dad as perilously close to falling apart as I did when I saw Mom crying for her own death. Dad wasn't even awake, and I could still see him slipping, through Mom's perceptions of his reactions.

My chest was being ripped in two and my breath got stopped up. I've never been so scared in my life.

He woke up, and I moved out of the room to eavesdrop on the other side of the bulkhead. I couldn't face her right now. I couldn't deal with my own share of the guilt for our treatment of her. But I couldn't stand to be away – Mom's certainty in her own death made the possibility a reality, and I couldn't just leave without knowing how she was going to explain it to Dad.

Dad asked why she was crying, sounding as panicked as I was feeling.

She said that her legs just hurt. Not to worry about it.

It sounded like Dad moved, because the chair he was sitting on skidded into my line of sight and the sheets on Mom's bed rustled.

He asked her what he could do.

She made a sarcastic comment about getting off her bed so she could stretch her legs, and I could tell that she tried too hard, the effort was lost.

It was quiet. I felt like an intruder and a coward at the same time.

She asked him where Jacen was; he told her that he was sleeping – which wasn't exactly true – and that I was flying.

It was quiet again. I wondered what was running through their minds, but was too frightened to actually try to use the Force against them. Frightened because I had a firm grip now on what was happening in that room. Frightened because I couldn't be brave like my father and brother and mother and accept what was going to happen. She was dying. They all knew it. I knew it.

Mom was dying, and I was too cowardly to admit it.

Everyone dies.

And then I heard Mom tell him to take care of us. I swallowed a sob. Dad didn't hide his.

He told her no, that he refused to pick up the slack for her again. But the humor didn't fly and I could tell that it was more automatic than deliberate.

I pictured Mom nodding her head, trying a smile as Dad cried for her and for himself. I glanced around the bulkhead, saw Dad sitting on the bunk, both hands under Mom's head, leaning over her with his forehead touching hers. My stomach clenched and I looked away and then moved back, unsure that I could move again if I wanted to. My parents don't cry. My parents survive and fight and laugh at each other and us. They don't cry.

But, then again, they don't die, either.

Everyone dies.

The tears were heavy enough on my face to obscure my vision, except that the watery figure that was my father moved his head up and kissed Mom's forehead, his jaw clenched and his eyes shut.

"You will _not _do this to me, Leia." He said it against her temple.

"I wouldn't if I could help it."

"_You_ can help it." He pulled away to look at her. "You're going to stay with me."

"It's going to happen someday, whether you give me permission or not."

"Sweetheart – "

"Look, Han. Don't interrupt, don't say anything. You'll just ruin my moment."

I heard a soft laugh that most certainly came from Mom. Dad couldn't laugh right now if he tried. Her voice was quiet when she spoke again.

"Promise me you won't run away from our children."

(I should have been faster, stronger, more able, there was something, there's always something, you can always do _something_)

There was complete silence. I held onto the last word like my last breath, treasured it, grabbed it and logged into my memory. I closed my eyes, trying to stop the tears, unwilling to stop them completely.

Then, quietly: "I promise."

(My fault. My fault, my fault, my _goddamned_ fault)

The last thread in my ripped-apart chest tore – I heard the quiet but was sure I was deaf – and listened to Dad whisper to Mom until she fell asleep.

I fell asleep behind the bulkhead, where I crouched and eavesdropped onto a conversation that I should have never heard, too frightened to leave and horrified that I couldn't just go away and leave Mom alone. I remember shaking and being cold and trying desperately to hold onto Mom through the Force, willing her to stay until we got to Corellia, stay until we knew what her situation was.

What our situation was.

After all, she's the heart of our family.

She's Mom.

She's Dad's everything.

Everyone dies. Even someone's everything.

* * *

(Jaina, post-_Balance Point_) 


	7. Losing Ground

_**Part VI: Losing Ground**

* * *

_

I have this holo of us I think of sometimes when it's late and I'm tired but not and I need a distraction. It's on Coruscant, so I can't see it now, but I have it memorized.

I spent a year with this holo as my placebo for a husband. It was there, so I kept it close, watched it, until I decided that my behavior was bizarre and erratic and that I had to leave Coruscant or continue to not-quite waste away in front of a twenty year old holo of a couple that, at the time, no longer existed.

I think of the holo when those half-despair feelings rush back or if I'm frustrated with my legs. Legs heal faster than the heart does, but both are annoying the hell out of me.

It shouldn't be this hard to renew a relationship.

Thinking about how it was is not the solution, I knew immediately, because we are not allowed to be the people we were before we lost Chewie. I don't want to be. But it means readjusting. A refitting, retooling, rewiring of the connection because both sides have melted and changed shape.

It's difficult. It's not recognizing how much he's changed; that's obvious. The crooked smile is as faked as our peace is. His eyes are darker, he's less willing to let things go. He's angrier, too, and it doesn't take much to realize that he equates the enemy with me when he's at his lowest, when his stress is visible. I'm the catalyst. I'm the enemy.

I try to simplify the concept when I'm thinking to myself, because the alternative is just beyond my capability to accept. If he thinks of me as the enemy because I'm stability incarnate, because he chose me and I chose quiet and a home, I'm at a complete loss. He says he doesn't think like that, but I've listened to him and his voice and the inflections in it too long to misinterpret the signs of falsity.

I'm the enemy.

And he's right.

He's absolutely correct in thinking of me as the reason he's angrier and darker and more hostile. I didn't kill Chewie, but I killed the Han Solo of legend. He left himself because of me, and at the time I assumed that his sacrifice was a token of his desire for that future we never once discussed.

But Han was always bigger than that, always just one step ahead of me. I never once thought I was his superior in any capacity; I rarely even saw myself as his equal. Since the day I met him, I've been following his lead, two steps behind.

The irony is that everyone else in the galaxy sees exactly the opposite.

It never felt that way. In every case, he has instigated the large developments in our relationship. Our marriage, our children, our separation … never once have I taken the lead, never once did I tell him what to do. I called it trust and space and reliability to myself, while our friends called it dependability and certainty and admirable. Looking back now, it seems so foolish to call it anything but sincerely ridiculous.

That is why I am the enemy. Because I manipulated a man that should never have been bogged down without doing a single thing.

He loves me. I know he does. He always has. He always will. But we are not equals. He is better than me, and he's beginning to understand it. And once he does, once he finally sees what I've always half-known, he will have every right to leave and never come back.

I'm the enemy.

I wish that I wasn't. But the one man that means the world to me, who genuinely deserves my respect and admiration, is too good for me, and I kept him back because I loved him enough to sacrifice what I loved about him for the sake of what I wanted.

When I think of that holo, the holo I remember though I haven't seen Coruscant in almost a complete year, before Duro, before Han took me back, before we started to clumsily rebuild what I ruined before it started: when I remember the holo of the couple happy and secure and dependable and admirable, I see it washing away, the colors draining out of them, until a half-form of a man drags a puddle of white across a battlefield.

And I suddenly understand what is really happening.

We are not reconciling. We are changing, and he is becoming larger, and I'm becoming smaller, and eventually he will not even see me anymore.

Because I am the enemy that clings to his feet, shouting out words like responsibility and promise, but he is finally back to who he should be, and feels comfortable in the skin he is supposed to wear.

And the man in the holo is a shadow of the man that sleeps beside me at night and tells me he loves me. And the woman in the holo is just trying to keep up with him.

* * *

(Leia, _Recovery_)


	8. Phoenix

_**Part VII: Phoenix**_

* * *

Mara told me to stop thinking of my sister that day.

I agreed: yes, that was _our_ day, the day our family became complete, a day I wouldn't forget for the rest of my life.

I'm a father.

I'm a _father_.

That doesn't mean I can completely shut her out. As much as I may try to, she's still a constant companion in my thoughts, for good or bad or any other sort of combination. It's a connection that Mara and Han don't understand and often make fun of. But the Force-strong twin bond is obviously a very potent thing; we've seen it twice in our family alone. Leia and I and Jacen and Jaina all share with our twin a bond that feels strange and comforting at the same time.

So on the day that my son was born, I found my thoughts momentarily tugged toward Leia.

She had sent me a quick burst of calm as Mara had gone into labor, had felt either Mara's distress or mine throughout the day. It was one of the few times I'd wished that the Force worked linearly – if she could have told me _anything_ useful, I would have appreciated it. Unfortunately, the Force doesn't work that way, and so all I could get from her was a light regret that she couldn't be here with me and a sense like a promise that Han and she were on their way.

I'm still processing.

I'm a _father_. I have a _son_. This is a day I'd never really thought would happen. Well, not since Bespin, at least. And now that it has, I can't actually put anything into words.

_Ben._

The minute I felt him – it was strong entrance, I've never been so sure that a child was Force-strong so early – she did, too. The moment I held him in my arms – so small! And so helpless, too! – I was overcome by congratulations and a joy that I knew were from her.

My twin arrived today to meet him and, because almost everyone was in the same room at the same time, to reunite with her children. Except for Jaina, who was gone because of a command meeting, my family was all together for the first time since we had left Coruscant for Lando's setup on Dubrillion. It was a gratifying sight, all of us together.

It was also the first time Mara, Anakin or I had seen Leia in person since Duro.

She looked better than I'd seen her look since the Yuuzhan Vong got here. Han had obviously forced her to eat – Leia was so bad at stopping what she was doing to make sure she had time to eat – and the circles under her eyes were still there, but not as dark.

She smiled, and I attributed it to Han.

I've been getting reports from him about once a week about her health, her recuperation, and anything else he felt like updating. At first, it was a quick minute when he commed. He would give a brief summary – what she was taking, how long they'd have her walk – and then sign off.

Eventually the comms became whole conversations. He'd talk with me about his children, the war, where they were and where they were going. It was refreshing to see, this rebirth of my best friend from the ashes of Chewie's death.

He would smile, and I'd attribute it to Leia.

When they walked in, holding hands, Leia with a limp and Han with a grin big enough to make me worry, I felt like our family was witnessing a renewal. Or maybe our family was renewing itself. Either way, what had become so dark and frightening over the past two years had changed. It seems so odd, to put your faith in what even they would consider a tumultuous relationship, but it's the reality nonetheless. We were whole again. It felt good to be sure of something.

It was interesting to watch their interaction. I'd known that Leia had felt betrayed by Han's actions after Chewie died, and had also taken it with a strong measure of guilt. I suspected the rebirth of the older Han – my pal on Hoth, the man that taught me Sabaac – became an accusation, in Leia's mind, of her marriage to him.

Though she wouldn't tell me anything of the sort. The twin bond works both ways.

There are moments of awkwardness between them. The humor isn't all back and the banter isn't as playful yet, but I know that they're on their way. They're smiling, which is an improvement on both of them. Their physical space has decreased – Han had an arm around Leia more often than not – and he seemed to be constantly fiddling with her short hair, like he was trying to annoy her. And doing a pretty good job with it, too.

They looked happy again. It was all I could do to not go back to my more Tatooine Farmboy ways. I was excited to introduce my son to a functional, fully-breathing Solo family.

And I could think of no better way to welcome Ben Skywalker to the galaxy.

* * *

(Luke, pre-_Star by Star_) 


	9. Kinesthetic

**_Part VIII: Kinesthetic_**

* * *

It feels so good to touch him again.

When he was gone I had these nightmares that he was just outside of my reach, that he moved when I did, that he could never be caught. This necessity of his touch is something I've always taken for granted.

I _need _to touch him.

Honestly, it's something I think I've picked up from him. Early on in our non-relationship, there was a heavy emphasis on touch. I was squimish and he was brazen and we fought it out in _my _territory and stayed as far away from _his _as possible. He'd try to touch me, and, more often than not, he would wind up with a cold response or a hot indignation that he was crude and inappropriate and infantile.

Touch was something I'd been prepared to sacrifice to the cause.

It was something he was prepared to sacrifice to me.

He didn't give up the chase, though. He just concentrated on me. I've never quite gotten the exact number of "others" he'd managed to – let's stick with _touch _for now – while he was unofficially attached to my Rebellion, but Luke smirks whenever the subject comes up, so I imagine its somewhere between two and two hundred. But then again, Han laughs whenever Luke's "others" comes up, too, and I happen to know that that number is significantly lower than two hundred, so perhaps that infuriating male bond is hiding a smaller number in Han's post-first Death Star experiences than I imagine.

Or they're doing it to annoy me. It's always a possibility.

Even after we finally reached the more mature aspect of our relationship, he was still more demonstrative than I was. Even though the Organas were a loving family, it was still a childhood in the spotlight, in the public view, and the quickest way to make a headline was to touch someone, even if it was a familial reassurance and not at all romantic. It's one of the reasons that my family was always viewed as something of an oddity in the upper echelons of the New Republic; Han had taught my children to be as aggressive at physical displays of affection as he was, and my modesty was not something any of them seemed to consider. Or inherit.

Touching him eventually became a habit, something that happened all the time, something that just _happened_. It became so easy to walk holding his hand, to sit with my head on his chest, to kiss him goodbye every morning. It didn't feel like stolen moments anymore – it felt like a routine.

I didn't realize how much I depended on the routine until it was disrupted and we were left with a void in our marriage where it used to be. Awkward moments started to occur after Chewie died as we'd sit opposite one another when I should have been on his lap, when I'd come home – or he would – and we'd get close enough to kiss and one of us would turn away. The simple routine before bed completely disintegrated as he'd fall asleep before I did and would forget or forego the whispered "love you" and the wink that I was so used to seeing.

Now that I have my Han back, I suddenly feel younger, like in the past year and a half we'd died with Chewie and were climbing our way back to life. I'm finding it difficult to be without him for a sustained period of time, and I feel cold when he's not around.

It's how I always imagined newlywedhood felt like. We'd skipped that part the first time around.

He's not completely healed. Neither am I. But, for the first time in my life with him, I feel like he's _mine _and that we've finally gotten our priorities straightened out. Our children come first – of course – and we both still feel very bound to the New Republic and defending Coruscant from invasion, but we have the time – and incentive – to focus on ourselves.

I can fall asleep and feel safe. I can kiss him without worry. I can admit irresponsibility and just exist on the _Falcon _when I want to. I can sit with him completely wrapped around me like he is right now, and not be late or concerned. My husband is warm and loving and completely irresistible when he chooses to be, and I can enjoy it. He _makes _me enjoy it.

After a lifetime of death, I'm beginning to live. My father, the politician, the statesman, the ultimate workaholic in all things moral, once told me that he prayed I would branch off from that particular family trait, and I'm starting to. Now.

And though we still live in a dangerous galaxy, though the Vong are pushing past Duro and towards Coruscant, though my daughter and my sons are all fighting out in the middle of chaos and impossibility, I'm finding peace in the oddest of places. I'm able to sleep the full length of the night. I'm able to deal with my occasional lapse of coordination and frustration. I'm _happy_, and completely and totally self-assured that eventually it will all work out.

My government will stand. My children will survive. My galaxy will continue to exist.

And I will continue learning how to live.

* * *

(Leia, early-_Star by Star_)


	10. Ever After

_**Part IX: Ever After

* * *

**_

The end.

That is, perhaps, not the way you imagined it to end?

But, you say, that is one-half of the story – there are more deaths, more tragedy, more inescapable darkness to cover the galaxy in heartache.

That is true. Another character dies. Another government is toppled. Another philosophy is repudiated.

You don't _finish _a love story, even when the story is concluded. But I have fulfilled my intention of telling you a _love _story. I have demonstrated my point, presented my conclusions, supported my thesis.

The hero is not a hero. The villain is not a villain. The love is not stable. The death is not death. The reconciliation does not reconcile everything. The birth is not a guarantee. The end is only a beginning.

Love is not the conclusion. But love can forge a _new _beginning.

This love story is concluded.

It means a new one is beginning.

* * *

(Narrator) 


End file.
